I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “You can’t fight city hall.” Well, in Redemption, Oklahoma, that means you can’t fight Mable Harjo. She was the mayor, owned half the town—the most expensive half—and ran the Ladies’ Garden Club like a Soviet gulag. So when her mint-green ’53 Thunderbird skidded to a stop less than a foot behind my patrol car, I just gritted my teeth, braced for her barrage, and tried to not inhale any of the dust that enveloped me.
When the billowing cloud subsided, Mable stood glaring up at me with arms crossed and foot tapping. I brushed dust from my uniform, but I swear there wasn’t a speck of dirt on her pale pink, wasp-waisted Victoria von Hagen suit.
“A monster, Harry? You better be drunk on your ass.”
Though Mable was a tiny woman, only five foot two, she would stand her ground against anyone. I doubt she would back down from ol’ Beelzebub himself. And I’m sure she would be pissed to know that her serious, all-business, dark-eyed glare from beneath that movie-star pixie haircut melted me. It always did.
“Yeah, sorry about that, but Elmer Marston called my office this morning, yelling about a ‘manster from hell,’ then his line went dead,” I said and pointed over her shoulder. “So when I saw this mess, I thought you better see it, too.”
“A ‘manster’?”
“He’s from the East Coast or Ohio or something.”
“Heh . . . I thought he was from New Orleans,” she said and turned around. The growing dawn revealed Marston’s sprawling ranch house reduced to a pile of splintered wood and crushed stone. Being the sheriff, problems in the county always fell into my lap, but since the house part of the ranch actually stood—or now partially stood—inside Redemption city limits, it was Mable’s problem, too.
“Christ on a crutch,” she muttered. “Did we have twisters out here last night?”
“Nope,” I said and motioned for her to follow me.
We worked our way closer to the debris field with her daintily stepping between shattered furniture and chunks of masonry, but the hard determination on her face never wavered. I helped her up onto a large piece of still-intact wall lying flat atop the mess and nodded down into the twenty-foot-diameter hole that did indeed appear to lead into the very bowels of hell. A foul stench wafted out. She wrapped her arms around her chest and hugged herself.
“Where’s Elmer and Edith? And the kids?”
“I haven’t found any bod—eh . . . people. Do monsters from hell eat people?”
“How would I know that, Harry?”
“Well, the hell part . . .” I said with a shrug.
She glared at me. “Shouldn’t you be looking for them?”
“I’ve called the county boys to bring some backhoes and loaders out here, but it’ll be a couple of hours.”
“He said it was a monster?”
I nodded. “From hell. There was a lot of racket in the background, but that part was pretty clear.”
“Where is that scientist guy working? The one from Harvard?”
I helped her to the ground, and we headed back to the cars. I admit I had the willies and didn’t let my right hand stray too far from my holstered gun. “Doctor Lawrence? He’s out at the old Triple Bend Ranch, digging for fossils. Why?”
“If this really is some kind of monster or huge animal, then we’re out of our league.”
“Well, yeah, but he’s a paleonthant . . . a paleoarco . . . just a fossil hunter. How could he help?”
“He’s a scientist, isn’t he? They always know what to do.”
“But shouldn’t we call the army?”
She tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. “Have you seen an actual monster from hell yet? I’m not going to call the damned army unless I see it with my own eyes. Besides, the army would just kill it.”
I blinked at her. “Look at Elmer’s house! Why wouldn’t you want to kill it?”
“Because motorists would come in from Highway 60 to see a monster, and they would pay a lot more to see a live one than a dead one.”
I clenched my teeth to keep from laughing when Dr. Lawrence climbed out of my deputy’s patrol car. He was dressed in silly desert expedition clothes and a hat, the same getups that Abbott and Costello wore when they met that mummy.
He strode toward me, clutching a smoldering pipe in one hand and extending the other. “Hello, Sheriff! Good to see you again. Your deputy tells me you have a . . . er . . . ‘mansta’ problem?”
“Mansta?”
He raised his hands, clawlike, growled, and gave me a lurid grin.
“Mansta? Huh. I guess Elmer was from New Orleans after all.
“I’m not an expert on manstas, Sheriff,” he said, stifling a snicker, “but I’ll do what I can.”
I led him over to where Mable was giving the loader operator step-by-step instructions about how to do his job through a bullhorn.
“Be careful! If someone is under there, you’re going to rip them in half.”
“Mayor Harjo, Doctor Lawrence is here.”
She lowered the bullhorn and turned around, then raised her eyebrows.
He removed his pith helmet, revealing dark, sweat-plastered hair, then took her hand and bowed slightly.
“Such a pleasua to meet you, Madam Maya.”
I stifled a growl as she looked him over, noting the tanned bare legs and equally bare ring finger, then did something I had seldom seen her do. She batted her eyelashes and blushed. “Well, hello there, Doctor. Please call me Mable.”
“And you can call me Ted.”
I cleared my throat and said, “Doctor Lawrence was just telling me he didn’t think he could help.”
“On the contrary,” the doctor said, still looking at Mable but pointing his stupid pipestem at me. “I might be able to help a great deal. There is a good chance this is nothing more than a sinkhole or a methane explosion. I might be able to help establish that.”
I hadn’t seen a monster, either, but his casually waving it off as fiction irritated the hell out of me.
“Mayor! Sheriff! Come see this,” one of the workers, Johnny Nguyen, yelled.
I rushed over and braced myself to see a dead friend, but instead found Johnny kneeling next to an animal track that was at least two feet long. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d been called by old ladies in the middle of the night to come arrest a prowler, only to find their flower beds filled with small tracks that looked just like these.
“That’s an armadillo rear-foot track,” I said. “No mistaking that splayed five-toe arrangement.”
Mable stared at the print with wide eyes.
The good doctor knelt and placed his arm on the ground. The print was about three inches longer than his arm measured fingertip to elbow.
“Astounding,” he muttered. “There’s a species of armadillo that can get as large as a pig, but this . . .”
“Harry?” Mable stood with arms crossed and jaw set, looking every bit the part of a battlefield general. “Based on the size of that footprint, how big is this thing?”
I looked down at the print again and a chill crawled up my spine. “It could easily be twenty-five to thirty feet long.”
She glanced at the doctor, who was deep in thought, chewing on his pipestem.
“Do you . . . do you think it ate the Marstons?” Johnny said.
“Nah,” I said, not really believing my own reply. “They normally eat insects. Mostly grubs, beetles, and worms.”
“Yes, but a creature that size would require a large population of monster bugs, too. Or it would have to find something else to eat,” the infinitely helpful doctor said.
I glanced at Mable. Instead of fainting or even being horrified, she stared off into space as her mouth moved silently. It was the same expression she wore when trying to calculate how much the town could earn from a harvest festival or Christmas pageant.
I didn’t care how much money something like this might generate. I wasn’t going to let this monster eat any more of my friends.
“I’m going down there,” I said.
“Down where?” Mable said.
“Into that hole. Armadillos are active at night—”
“Nocturnal,” the doctor chimed in.
“Uh, yeah. So that means it’s probably made a burrow and is sleeping down there somewhere. It’ll be mighty hungry again come nightfall.”
Dr. Lawrence pointed his pipestem at me again. “And just what will you do down there, Sheriff? I suggest you call the army and let the professionals deal with this problem.”
I glanced at Mable before addressing His Scienceship. “Our good mayor refuses to let me call the army. But I’m not a total fool, Doctor. I worked with explosives during the war and intend to take some dynamite down with me.”
“Don’t you dare kill that thing!” Mable said and actually stomped her foot like a five-year-old. “No dynamite!”
“Mable! There is a good chance that manster . . . shoot . . . monster ate Elmer and his family! My job is to protect the people of this county, and by God if I have to kill that monster to stop it, I will!” She glared at me, but I stared right back. “Have me fired if you want, but wait until we stop this thing first.”
“I’m going with you,” Mable said.
“Like hell you are,” I said without thinking.
She looked up at me with an amused smile. “Are you going to tie me up to stop me, Harry?”
My face grew hot with a sudden blush.
“Or maybe use those cold steel handcuffs? And gag me with something?”
Damn her! Was she flirting again? I couldn’t figure her out. One minute she was yelling at me, next she was pouring on the double entendres. I couldn’t even look at her. “Fine. Wear some real shoes and meet me back here in two hours.”
As usual, Mable was too smart for me. I gathered all my equipment, including the dynamite, wire spool, and my surplus twist-type ten-cap blasting machine, and was back at the hole in less than an hour, planning to be long gone before she returned at the appointed time. But there she stood, decked out in tight blue jeans, hiking boots, and a leather jacket. She also had a well-used M1 rifle slung from her shoulder. It had probably belonged to her husband who died in the war, and even though it was almost bigger than she was, I had no doubt she could shoot it.
Dr. Lawrence stood beside her, festooned with gear hanging from straps and hooks all over him. The huge camera with dinner-plate sized flash attachment hanging around his neck made him look like a comical tourist.
I growled under my breath. My deputy, whom I’d left in charge of the search and rescue operation, chuckled and shook his head. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and the monster’ll kill you quick.”
“I can only hope.”
Ten minutes later, we stood huddled together in the Marstons’ bathtub, holding on to chains as a smirking Johnny Nguyen lowered our makeshift elevator into the hole via a backhoe.
“Which direction?” Mable said once we were inside.
I looked both ways, then pointed down the tunnel that headed toward town. I didn’t want that thing anywhere near the residents of Redemption.
The tunnel was cool, making me wish I’d also brought a jacket, as it meandered, turning first left, then right, steadily descending. The illumination from the Marston hole faded quickly, forcing us to switch on our flashlights within minutes.
No one spoke as we shuffled along. I was as scared as a five-year-old seeing creatures in my dark closet. Being an Iwo Jima veteran and longtime sheriff had never prepared me for something like this. In comparison, being shot at was a piece of cake. I knew if we met this thing, face-to-face in the tunnel, we were in big trouble. I doubted bullets would penetrate that thick armored hide, and we probably wouldn’t have time to set explosives. And the floor covered in loose dirt and smelling every bit like an open grave didn’t help.
I had lost my bearings almost as soon as we started out and was just beginning to think we should turn back when Mable pointed her flashlight up. “Look at that. I think we’re getting close to town.”
Pipes of various sizes crisscrossed the tunnel ceiling. Some showing scrape marks where the monster’s shell must have rubbed against them. I’m not sure why, but seeing those scraped pipes made the whole situation seem even more real.
We pushed forward and passed beneath what had to be a storm sewer pipe.
“We must be right under downtown,” Mabel said.
That’s when I saw the first grub. It was the size of my forearm, fat and white, squirming along the loose dirt of the tunnel floor. Mable squealed and almost knocked Dr. Lawrence down trying to get behind him. I’d seen her shoot a rattler and stomp a tarantula. I didn’t think she was afraid of anything. Of course, the good doctor was more than happy to wrap his arms around her and play protector.
“Oh good Lord, kill that thing!” she said.
I pulled my revolver from the holster, but before I could draw a bead, the doctor yelled, “Wait!”
He shrugged loose from Mable, rushed forward, and fished a bag from one of his many pockets. “What an incredible specimen. I know entomologists who would give me their first child for this grub.”
Mable stood tensed, ready for flight. “It’s disgusting,” she muttered. “Like a giant maggot.”
As Lawrence knelt to scoop up the grub, a loud clicking started up and quickened.
“Of course,” he said, pulling a yellow Geiger counter from a pouch at his side, “radioactivity is just about the only thing that could cause such a mutation of the grubs and the armadillo.”
“Is it dangerous?” I said, starting to feel a little sick. I knew what radiation could do to people. I’d been part of MacArthur’s force that occupied Japan after the war.
He shoved the squirming grotesquery into the bag and peered at the glowing screen on the clicking box. “No, not unless you were to eat it.”
Mable quivered again, then stepped forward, smoothing her jacket and pants. I smiled and she replied with her best glare. “Disgusting. Let’s get going. I’m starting to believe this monster might actually exist.”
We moved about another sixty or seventy yards up the tunnel, where it opened into a wide spot with three more tunnels branching off in different directions. The Geiger counter ticked faster, and I noticed a sudden change in the dirt color above us and to our left side. Even the smell changed to something warm and loamy.
“Oh dear God,” Mable muttered. “I think I know what caused these mutations.”
“What?” I said.
Just then, the heads of two more grubs appeared from the dark-colored soil. They writhed around and then fell to the floor. Mable squealed, and her legs looked like she was climbing an invisible ladder as she tried to keep her feet far from the squirming maggot things.
She took a couple steps back down the tunnel and quivered all over. The look on her face could have belonged to a child being forced to eat Brussels sprouts.
The good doctor rushed forward to snatch the grubs.
“What does the gadget say now, Doc?” I said. “Are we in trouble?”
“Huh?” He had a beatific smile on his face as he examined each squishy worm before dropping it in the bag with the first one. “Oh, not yet. But we wouldn’t want to stay here more than a couple hours.”
I turned to Mable. “Okay, Mayor. We might not have much time. What’s going on?”
She glanced over my shoulder, then scanned the walls and ceiling looking for more grubs.
“Spill it, Mable!”
She flinched and then shrugged. “Have you seen my new roses?”
I was confounded. “Roses? No, what do roses have to do with it?”
“Well, a botanist friend of mine who lives in New Mexico sent me pictures of some rosebushes she found in a river valley. The heads on these roses are huge! I mean, they’re the size of dinner plates!”
“So you went there and got the rosebushes? Bushes that were irradiated by the atomic tests in New Mexico?”
“I’m afraid it’s worse than that,” Mable said, and she wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Worse?”
She nodded. “I . . . um . . . thought there must be something special about the soil, so I brought some of that, too.”
“Irradiated soil?”
“Well, I didn’t know it was radioactive!”
“How much?”
“Seven dump trucks full.”
I looked all around us. “So we’re right beneath your garden?”
She nodded.
“This giant armadillo was in that dirt and nobody noticed it?”
“Actually,” the doctor said and pointed his pipestem at me again, “it could have been a local armadillo that was mutated by eating the radioactive grubs.”
I cursed under my breath, but before I could ask any more questions, a loud squeaking noise came from down one of the tunnels.
“It’s coming!” yelled the doctor.
I grabbed Mable and pushed her down the tunnel we’d entered. “Run!”
In the beam from Dr. Lawrence’s flashlight I could see the monster, snuffling and grunting as it waddled up the tunnel. Its head was the size of my couch!
I pulled the satchel charge from my back, attached the lead wires, and tossed it down the tunnel toward the beast.
Mable shouted, “Harry, no! We’re right under my house!”
I cursed, yanked the wires loose from my ten-cap, and then pulled my pistol, knowing I was screwed as the giant armadillo snuffled and squeaked up the tunnel in our direction. I doubted even my .44 Special would punch through that armored skull, so I took aim at one beady, black eye.
Dr. Lawrence dropped his flashlight and ran down the shaft with Mable. No doubt intending to protect her. I nudged the light with my foot until it shone down the tunnel again, revealing that the monster had stopped.
The head of a grub protruded from the wall, catching the armadillo’s attention. In one quick move, it shoved its pointed snout into the wall, grunted a few times, and came out with the grub, which disappeared in a flurry of teeth and squirming white flesh. Then those shiny black eyes turned toward me again.
In the Pacific, I’d faced machine guns, picked up a live grenade, and even fought off three Japanese soldiers using a polo mallet, but I’d never been more scared than I was at that moment. Then, as I raised my gun again, I had an idea.
“Doc! Throw me your bag of grubs!” I glanced down the tunnel and could barely see them in the dim light. Mable stood in a perfect marksman stance with the M1 raised to her shoulder, ready to fire. The doctor peeked from behind her, holding the camera and staring at me.
“Throw me the damned grubs!”
Mable turned and grabbed the bag, then tossed it up the tunnel toward me, but it fell short and spilled the three grubs onto the floor.
I looked back and saw the monster was almost on me. Shoot or bait? I’d seen how vicious wounded animals could be, and shooting it in one eye sure as hell wouldn’t kill this thing. I shoved my pistol back in the holster, darted ten feet up the tunnel, and snatched a grub.
When I turned around, the armadillo’s massive head was right in front of me. I froze and saw my reflection in the dark, glittering eyes. The head tilted down a bit, looking at the grub squirming in my hands. Moving slowly, I tossed it on the floor between us. The monster snatched it and gobbled it down in one sickening slurp. Then the massive snout nuzzled my hand, just like Gus, my old German shepherd. I took a step back, picked up another grub, and repeated the process. My new friend followed and again gently bumped my arm holding the treat. I held it up in my palms and the monster snatched it.
I released a nervous laugh and took another step back. “Did ya see that, Mable?”
The beast, evidently having noticed the remaining grub on the tunnel floor behind me, squeaked loudly and lunged forward, its fat, armored body slamming me hard against the wall. The air was forced from my lungs and I was dragged along for a second before falling to the floor.
Then I heard Mable scream.
I struggled to my feet and jumped on the thing’s armored butt as it passed. Maintaining a grip on the smooth shell proved difficult, but I crawled slowly up and forward until my back scraped against the dirt and pipes of the tunnel ceiling. I thought if I could put my pistol right against the back of its head . . .
Finally aware of my presence, the monster squealed and bucked, making me slide forward and almost off, but I grabbed an ear the size of Big Bubba Thompson’s Stetson and held on. It stopped bucking and made a series of pitiful little whimpers each time I pulled the ear. Taking advantage of the pause, I swung my legs up around its fat neck and grabbed the other ear.
I found that with the gentlest of tugs on an ear, I could make the beast turn its head. Pulling on both of them made it back up. Mable started laughing, but she didn’t lower her gun. The doctor was nowhere to be seen.
A flashlight came bobbing up the tunnel, and my deputy skidded to a stop next to Mable. He raised his service revolver in a shaking hand.
“Don’t shoot it!” I yelled.
“Um . . . Boss? Elmer Marston called the station,” he said, panting. “He and the family are staying near Watonga with his brother-in-law who doesn’t have a phone, and he only now had a chance to call. He wants to know if you’ve caught the monster armadillo yet so he can come rebuild his house. I guess I can tell him yes?”
A week later Mable sat on the hood of my patrol car, trying to count the people in a line snaking across the county fairgrounds. The town council—with some prodding by Mable—decided to charge fifty cents for pictures with the giant armadillo and three bucks each to ride it. Elmer himself was driving the monster, while his two boys occasionally tossed it a grub. The town had originally planned to raise enough money to build Elmer a new house, but had long ago surpassed that needed amount. I hadn’t seen Mable smile so much since she’d been named second-best mayor in Oklahoma two years before.
“Mable?”
“Hmmm . . . ?” she said, not looking away from the line.
“Uh, I was thinking that since you can’t live in your house now. Because of the radiation. At least for awhile. I mean, my place is plenty big and . . .”
She turned toward me, chin resting on her fists, eyebrows raised and a wry smile on her lips. “Yes, Harry?”
“I mean, we couldn’t just . . . we’d have to, well . . .”
My deputy’s patrol car skidded to a stop right beside us, followed by Hank Boonton’s flatbed truck, and I bit off a string of curses.
“Holy shit, Boss, come look at this!” he said and motioned me toward Hank’s truck.
Roped down tight to the bed was an enormous slab of gooey honeycomb. Each hexagonal cell was the size of a basketball hoop.
“Jesus wept,” I muttered.
“Oh my Lord,” Mable said. “I bet they have huge stingers.”
I turned to look at her. “What?”
“We could be the biggest honey producers in the country,” she said.
“Oh no,” I said. “This time, I’m calling the army.”
“Not without my approval, Harry. I’m the mayor!” she said and poked me in the chest.
“And I work for the county, not you,” I said, but she had already turned her attention back to the honeycomb, and when she crossed her arms and started tapping her foot, I knew I was in trouble.